Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia — currently the world’s most valuable publicly traded company — commented on China’s automotive and semiconductor industries during a media event on Wednesday.
In a media briefing held in Beijing, the chief executive said that Huawei‘s “chip design is extremely impressive,” praising the tech giant’s system and network engineering.
“In addition, Huawei offers its own cloud services,” Huang mentioned, adding that “you should know that Nvidia does not provide its own cloud services, while Huawei does.”
“They’re able to independently develop their market,” which is “a truly a remarkable strength,” he noted. “We will do our utmost to learn from Huawei, and we’ll also learn from an increasing number of competitors.”
Amid his visit to China, Nvidia‘s chief highlighted the work of several Chinese EV makers, saying that “China’s electric vehicles are amazing, everyone agrees.”
“Li Auto cars have such large spaces that they look like living rooms on wheels,” he stated, adding that “Nio and XPeng are very luxurious.”
Huang said that Xiaomi‘s co-founder and CEO Lei Jun showed him the new YU7 SUV, set to rival Tesla‘s Model Y in China.
According to Nvidia‘s chief, it has “incredible technology” and “beautiful design.” Huang added that he “really wants to buy a Xiaomi car, but unfortunately it is not available in the United States.”
Nvidia provides its chips to several companies, including Chinese automakers XPeng, Xiaomi, Nio, Great Wall Motor, and Li Auto — but also Mercedes Benz, Jaguar Land Rover and Kia.
However, as brands started developing in-house chips, the reliance on the California-based company is decreasing.
XPeng recently launched its G7 SUV, the first model to be equipped with the AI Turing chip developed in-house, which has a computing power of 2,200 tera-operations per second (TOPS).
A month before the model was out in the market, founder and CEO He Xiaopeng told the Finacial Times that “the effective computing power of the Turing AI chip is three times greater than that of the leading autonomous driving chip, Orin-X.”
Nvidia‘s Orin series delivers up to 275 trillion operations per second (TOPS). These chips power smart driving features in vehicles such as XPeng’s Mona M03 Max and Xiaomi’s debut SU7.
The company’s latest chip for autonomous driving is the Drive Thor, which targets up to 2,000 TOPS — and is integrated in Xiaomi‘s YU7.
The chipmaker has been working with Shanghai-based EV maker Nio since 2014.
However, the Chinese automaker started developing chips in 2021. Nio has launched two chips since then: the Yangjian chip for LiDAR control and the autonomous driving chip Shenji NX9031.
The Shenji chip, unveiled in late 2023, was first integrated into Nio’s flagship ET9 sedan, signaling the start of the company’s shift away from using Nvidia chips in its main brand vehicles.
However, the company said earlier this week that its sub-brand Onvo’s models will still rely on Nvidia Orin chips.
Back in 2020, Li Auto announced it would become the first OEM to use the Orin chips in its extended-range electric vehicles (EREV), set to launch in 2022.
In 2024, the two companies further expanded their partnership, with Li Auto using Thor chips in its electric vehicles.
Nvidia‘s CEO is currently visiting China, where he announced on Tuesday that the company is planning to apply for US government approval to resume sales of its H20 chip series in the country.
The US imposed an export ban on advanced AI chips to China in 2023.
Earlier this year, Donald Trump expanded the ban to include chips like Nvidia‘s H20 — which were developed specifically for the Chinese market after the 2023 ban.
